Trade and Industry written question – answered at on 10 May 2006.
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what funding has been given by (a) his Department and (b) the Physical Sciences Research Council to the development of (i) liquid metal fast breeder reactors and (ii) lead-cooled fast reactors to generate electricity in each year since 1997.
The Department has provided no funding to these technologies since 1997.
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council:
The EPSRC invests in basic, strategic and applied research in energy generation, transmission and utilisation. The Council's total expenditure on nuclear fission research in financial years 1997-98 to 2005-06 is given in the following table:
Financial Year | Expenditure (£) |
1997-98 | 42,111 |
1998-99 | 81,228 |
1999-2000 | 61,793 |
2000-01 | 127,562 |
2001-02 | 324,879 |
2002-03 | 307,195 |
2003-04 | 212,239 |
2004-05 | 111,947 |
2005-06 | 951,643 |
The recently announced £6.1 million "Keeping the Nuclear Option Open" research consortium, led by Imperial College London, will be undertaking research to both underpin and specifically address the Generation IV research agenda. In part as a result of this recent major investment, EPSRC's expenditure on nuclear power research in 2006-07 is projected to rise to in excess of £1.7 million.
EPSRC is unable to identify from its records specific investment in a number of the various Generation IV technologies. EPSRC has recently funded a research project at the University of Manchester on high- temperature gas-cooled reactors—expenditure on this grant, which is included in the total figures stated above, was £13,505 in 2005-06 and is projected to be £14,849 in 2006-07.
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No0 people think not
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